Page 41 - RusRPTApr23

2.14 Russian pharma sales up in value but down in volume in 2022
US pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly sells the management of its Russian business to Swiss Swixx Biopharma, but will continue to supply key medicines
American pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly has signed off on an agreement with Swiss Swixx Biopharma to take over its Russian business, TASS reported on March 29.
Eli Lilly said it was also doing the deal to ensure compliance with current obligations concerning local production, according to a source in the company's Russian representative office.
The agreement between Eli Lilly and Swixx Biopharma allows life-saving medications to continue flowing to Russian patients who require treatment for diabetes, cancer, autoimmune, and neurological diseases, the company said.
While medicines have not been sanctioned, due to shipping problems and self-sanctioning by many producers, the supply of many sophisticated medicines that have to be imported has dried up.
According to analysts at Yakov & Partners, the share of foreign companies in the Russian market is now about 25% in the budget segment and 23% in the commercial sector. Collectively, companies from unfriendly countries occupy more than half of the drug market, while Russian players account for 36%.
The government and the private sector have been investing heavily into the pharmaceutical sector in the last year and it was one of the few sectors to expand in 2022, but the most sophisticated drugs cannot be made in Russia due to technology constraints.
Pharmaceutical production in Russia in 2022 grew by more than 15% compared to 2021, while the industry continues to increase its technological independence, according to recent statements, by Russia’s Deputy Prime Minister Denis Manturov, reports The Pharma Letter.
Widely seen as backward, Russia’s pharmaceutical sector has enjoyed something of a renaissance after it surprised the world with coming up with the first, and highly effective, coronavirus vaccine Sputnik V at the end of 2020. Since then the government has poured money into the sector in order to further reduce Russia’s dependence on imported drugs.
In general, drug spendings of Russians but value also grew in 2022. According to a recent study conducted by the Russian unit of research company Ipsos, the average check in Russian pharmacies in third-quarter 2022 amounted to RUB622 ($8.89), which is 15.6% more than in the same period of last year and by 26% higher than in 2020.
41 RUSSIA Country Report Russia April 2023 www.intellinews.com